When, in late February, Pakistan's Telecommunications Authority (PTA) issued a call for proposals on a large scale internet filtering system to allow for the blocking of up to 50 million URLs (with, it should be noted, a processing delay of "not more than 1 milliseconds [sic]"), Pakistani rights activists were more than a little peeved. While censorship (either online or offline) in the Islamic Republic is no new thing, the new move - presumably designed to entice Western companies to the country - would potentially put Pakistan on par with countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia in terms of sites blocked.